Resting devices such as a chair or bed may be adjusted to fit the comfort of an individual user.
Contemporary chairs particularly utilised in an office are becoming more sophisticated with respect to the different adjustments that can be made to these types of chairs. Typically such chairs provide that both the back and the seat of the office chair can be separately adjusted to a number of different settings by utilising a plurality of chair lever control arms. Generally speaking, all chair lever control arms or controls are generally located below the chair seat. This is generally the case for adjustable beds of the type having control arms located below the bed.
A particular draw back of such prior art chairs resides in the likelihood that understanding of the use of the controls is often difficult. Much of the difficulty results from the positioning of the lever control arms below the chair seat where they are not readily visibly assessable.
Accordingly, it is not unusual that the operation of most chair controls is understood after a trial and error test done by a person using the chair. Such person will generally try each control to determine its function and may reach a full understanding of the chair controls only after extended chair usage. This can be frustrating as the chair control arms can move a chair part, which has already been set to an appropriate optimal position, and require resetting. In some case, such person may not be able to properly reset the chair for optimal usage.
In other cases movement of the lever control arms or devices without an understanding of its function can lead to adjustment of the chair parts which is inappropriate. For example, some chairs are equipped with a tension device that is rotatable and adjusts the tension on the “free float” tilting motion of the chair. This “free float” motion may be locked (i.e. prohibits the swing) or unlocked by a chair lever arm. If the tension is adjusted for a heavy person and a light person sits on the chair it is possible that the light person may be catapulted forward by the spring activated movement when the lever arm is unlocked.
Accordingly, various prior art devices have heretofore been constructed in order to address the difficulties referred to above.
For example, reissue U.S. Pat. No. Re. 36,928 relates to an operational guide mounted to an adjustable chair where the guide includes a card having a pictorial guide for operating the adjustable chair located on the top side of the card.
Moreover, some prior art chairs included lever control arms having an end with a serrated edge along one side thereof.
In other cases, Braille has been disposed on a top surface of a lever control arm in order to permit a blind person to locate the particular lever control arm and convey information regarding same.
However, it is difficult for the general public to decipher the meaning of a serrated edge or Braille disposed on a lever control arm. Furthermore it is generally difficult to visually represent a serrated edge or Braille on a screen or guide which is easy to see or understand.
Moreover the prior art devices have not addressed the issue of assisting a user to understand the operation of a lever control arm, apart from providing an instructional manual in a booklet of written form. In some prior art devices summaries of instructions are provided on a card as shown in U.S. Pat. No. Re. 36,928 or card pivoting outwardly from an arm of a chair.
According, it is an object of this invention to provide an improved lever control arm for a chair, which is more easily and readily understood by the general public.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved chair having control levers for adjusting a chair having an improved method of conveying information concerning its functionality.
It is an aspect of this invention to provide a control lever having one end adapted for attachment to a resting device for controlled adjustment thereof and another end having a tactile contour for identifying the control lever.
It is another aspect of this invention to provide a plurality of levers each having one end adapted for attachment below a chair seat or controlling separate movements of a chair, each said lever having another end having tactile shapes different from one another so as to distinguish said levers.
It is another aspect of this invention to provide a chair having a selectively moveable back and seat and a plurality of control arms attached below said seat for activating selected movements of said back and seat wherein said one of said control arms includes an end having a tactile shape different from an end of another one of said control arms.
It is another aspect of this invention to provide a chair having a selectively moveable back and seat including a first lever control arm having one end attached below the seat and another end presenting a tactile shape, said first lever arm activating a selected movement of said back or seat; a second lever control arm having one end attached below said seat and another end presenting a tactile shape, said second lever control arm activating another selected movement of said back or seat different from said first lever control arm; said tactile shape of said second lever arm different from said tactile shape of said first lever arm; and a guide presented by the arm of the chair for displaying the different tactile shapes and the associated movements of said first and second lever control arms.
It is another aspect of this invention to provide a guide for a chair having a plurality of lever control arms with ends having different tactile shapes, for activating a selective orientation of a back or seat of a chair comprising: a screen having visual representations corresponding to each said different tactile shapes; information associated with said visual representations and corresponding to selective orientations activated by said plurality of lever control arms respectively.
It is another aspect of this invention to provide a method of correlating a plurality of separate movements of a chair with a plurality of lever control arms activating said movements respectively comprising the steps of: providing a plurality of lever control arms with ends having different tactile contour shapes; displaying a guide having said shapes with information associated with said movements of said plurality of lever control arms respectively.
These and other objects and features of the invention shall now be described in relation to the following drawings.